We sometimes measure success in terms of large accomplishments, but it is often small steps that bring the most significant impact into people’s lives. This past year was one of incremental yet meaningful change for the community we serve.

 

Farmers of the Future continues to move forward: 

This has been a wonderful year for our Farmers of the Future program, as we moved closer to launching the Dov Pasternak Horticultural Training Centre in an official capacity.

We have been developing curriculum, identifying professors who will be the trainers in the Centre and, most importantly, we have built the Training Centre Garden. In this half-hectare adjacent to the Training Centre we have installed a solar pump and solar panels, five different kinds of irrigation, built a guard house, meeting space, compost section, tree nursery and more. A portion of this site will be set aside for Apprentices to learn techniques and practice. The remainder will be an income-generating garden to help defray the operational costs of the Centre. With the generous support of our sponsors, including LUSH, we have been able to complete this important phase of our Centre and move closer to receiving official status as a school, from the Ministry of Training. We are tremendously proud of our Leadership Team in Niger: Hamani Djibo, Saidou Abdoussalam, and Issaka Housseini whose dedication, expertise and energy fuel our success.

Farmers of the Future is a partnership between Pencils for Kids and Eliminate Poverty Now ( EPN , an NGO in the USA), and from inception has been guided by the late Professor Dov Pasternak. The Farmers of the Future (FOF) program encourages farmers to think of farming as a business. It promotes the cultivation of high value irrigated crops, primarily vegetables, and provides training and opportunity, so that farmers can begin to prosper and not just survive.

½ Hectare Training Garden – before the transformation

…After the transformation!

Different ways to irrigate.

Onion storage

Solar panels on guard house

Meeting Area

Scholarships for Girls 

Three more girls graduated in 2019 to bring the total to 33 who have gone on to university or post secondary institutions since our scholarship program began!

P4K has provided 540 scholarships to 253 girls since 2009, and 145 of those girls received scholarships in more than one year because of their consistently high academic achievements. Pencils for Kids is tremendously proud of having been able to support the educational advancement of young women in the Libore community. 

This year, our Scholarships for Girls program, in addition to its regular assistance to junior and senior students, helped give girls in their final year of Secondary a “second chance”. Many of these girls were no longer eligible to repeat their final year if they did not pass. We knew that this was the result of school strikes throughout the year, national examinations that were considered enormously difficult, and personal struggles. We are very proud of the effort these girls made and delighted that three of them passed their final exams and are now moving on to University or other post-graduate institutes. 

THREE GRADUATES 2018/2019:

From left to right: Sarifatou Moussa Issaka, Madia Alzouma Adamou, and Sahadatou Alzouma Adamou

Cooper Sewing Centre

We are celebrating its 11th year anniversary with an extraordinary donation from The Travel Agent Next Door, its agents and suppliers! 

The Cooper Centre, founded by P4K with generous support from the Cooper family, is a sewing program where girls take a three-year course, pay their own tuition, and participate in examinations that are accredited by the National Sewing Association. The goal is to give girls and women, who are no longer in school, a second chance to get a profession. P4K started this program with only four girls in 2008, helping them acquire an income generating skill. They are learning embroidery, sewing, knitting and dyeing and also take courses in numeracy and literacy. Students pay a yearly fee to help cover the costs of the teachers. 

In 2019-2020, 50 new girls have been enrolled in first year, 48 girls have passed into their second year, and 30 girls are in the final year of their three year program.

This year, thanks to the generosity of The Travel Agent Next Door, and its suppliers and agents, 30 new sewing machines were donated to the Centre along with 5 new knitting machines. In addition, we have been able to repair 300 chairs and purchase two tarpaulins to support the chair rental business that helps to cover the ongoing expenses of the Sewing Centre. 

5 new knitting machines!

30 new sewing machines

Broken chairs for chair rental business

300 newly woven chairs

Ceremony for the huge donation of books, sewing machines, computers and chairs! Over 1,000 people attended this important event to celebrate the generosity of The Travel Agent Next Door, its agents and suppliers.

Other News

In 2019, Pencils for Kids completed building its first basketball court. We are now hoping to find donations of uniforms, shoes and balls – and bring trainers and coaches to the community of Libore! 

Basketball comes to Libore!

Some special thank you’s! 

We’d like to acknowledge some of the unsung heroes behind Pencils for Kids. Bernie Friedman is one of our heroes. For the better part of the last decade, Bernie has tirelessly volunteered his time to create a meaningful, useful and functional database for our Scholarships for Girls program. His determination, his humour and his character have inspired us all – and we feel blessed to have him on our team.

In honour of the special birthday of our Treasurer and Program Director, Louise Sherman, and her many contributions to P4K, her friends bought a sewing machine for the Sewing Centre and outfitted the entire Theatre Club with special custom T-shirts. Louise founded this Theatre group over a decade ago and it has brought joy and inspiration to hundreds in the community.

T-shirts in honour of Louise for the Theatre group!

Sewing machine donated in honour of Louise Sherman!

Students at Richmond Green Secondary School donated five additional sewing machines after a full year of fundraising.

Thank you for supporting the work of Pencils for Kids and letting the children and women know how much you care!